Short-List Blues

I’ve entered the umpteenth call for entry, grant application and competition deadline. Of all my submissions, one comes back congratulating me for making it– past the first stage of elimination. I’m invited to bring work down for the final jury. Hope rises with anticipation, excitement. I don’t have transport but luckily, my work fits into a cab. Making it past the first round of elimination, though, is as far as I get. In the end, I haul my work back outside. It’s raining; I’m all wet, standing near the curb with declined work, waiting for the cab marked "REJECTION."

Ah rejection. How do I loathe thee? Let me count the platitudes: it’s not whether you win or lose but how you play the game. At least you tried. Better luck next time. It’s not the destination but the journey. I’m muttering all this on the grey ride home, but the truth is, I really wanted the prize money and envy the artists who succeeded. Later, one of them tells me that had she known about my transport woes, she would have chauffeured me home. This of course, exacerbates a shame like no other, but I resist the urge to confess that I took a cab because my martyr complex arrived and I needed to be alone in order to indulge it.

Which is worse: outright rejection or the short-list blues/semi-final fatigue/ in-the-running ennui? At least rejection clears an open meadow for complaint to rage and storm through. It’s over. Reaching the semi-finals or final has that lingering cachet of promise. When failure happens instead, I find it worse for dragging out so long.

With such a resume of frustration, I polled various artists on how they handled this most given of many an artist’s career. (Many thanks to all who endured the invisible microphone shoved under your noses– often during shows where your own work was declined.) Artists have mixed reactions and methods on how to deal with discouragement and what is necessary to get themselves out of it. Surprisingly, and I like to think this reflects on the maturity of our group, very few admitted to self-destructive behaviours. Now whether that’s such a confidential matter or an interview missed, hardly anyone mentioned bingeing on chocolate cake or drinking more wine than snacking on cheese. I heard of no fragile objects hurled or innocent pillows pummeled. Everyone admitted though, to an initial upset. Hissy fits, crying, swearing, and feeling slightly sorry for oneself predominated. Some artists expressed doubt about the quality of some works accepted in juried shows, discovering later, that work rejected can receive awards in another exhibition. A few artists felt cynicism towards jurors, with a "what do they know?" attitude. One artist opined that "if you feel good about your work, then everybody else is (who disagrees) is wrong. To be an artist, you have to have a massive ego to begin with." Another artist replied, "you can’t win ‘em all." After rejection, he just continues "working with a vengeance." The women artists on the whole, leaned more towards a philosophical approach. They concluded from rejection that "it wasn’t meant to be," acknowledging how "success could happen another time." Then they continue with art-making. Rejections are regarded with a "grain of salt" especially when they have experienced a lot of it. One artist described how she attends an opening where her own work was not accepted. Sometimes she does think there was good reason her work was refused and it makes her work harder. The unpleasant feelings of disappointment can make it easy to forget that occasionally, artists do learn from rejection in a constructive way.

My response echoes the artists who cry and swear, like the one who vowed to "quit this shitty profession and take up gardening, or study Spanish, or do something more useful with my time...work at Tim Horton’s or Second Cup perhaps, where I could get my iced café latte at a discounted price." But for those of you who may be at a loss or lacking a system for coping with rejection, I humbly submit the ticker tape or toilet roll method. This device has the advantage of literally, pulling out the events of one’s day, so you see at a glance, how the experience of rejection is merely one aspect of your full, rich life. I do prefer toilet paper because of its disposable metaphor. The tissues, serrated and easily torn off, affirm a "fresh start" quality about tomorrows, which if allowed, puts into perspective the impermanence of rejections’s power. Or if you decide to keep the roll intact, what you have is a collection of temporary moments where eventually, the overview/grande scheme cannot help but enter. Write in any way– upside down, diagonally, straight across– on squares of tissue, anything that happens during a day. Beginning with morning is obvious, but the process also accepts anywhere as a perfectly good place to start. For example, one of my daily rolls might read: walked to Music Garden, tai chi, worked on painting, put up kitchen shelf, called my parents, pruned dogwood, project grant rejected, mailed Gail’s card, bought apricot juice and bananas, talked to a neighbour about our cats fighting, vacuumed rugs, made tofu stir-fry, Carol over for dinner and poetry session, watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer, washed my socks. At day’s end, that pesky arts grant rejection is bracketed on either side by the garden and a friend’s birthday. It’s just one incident floating in a sea of many others. Radar would barely hiccup if this were a screen.

However, if all this still fails to comfort or lift your spirits after dropping once again, onto the asphalt of rejection, you can take heart in the response of one senior artist. When I asked him how he dealt with rejection, he vigourously announced: "To tell you the truth Jean, the only rejections I’ve ever had were from women!" (I assume he meant that rejection was far more prevalent in his personal life than his professional one).